Inspired by the carved oxen atop Laon cathedral,
Edward Echlin
suggests that we include animals within our prayer-life. The
integration of animals into our worshipping community makes our
community, our prayer, and our worship, more whole and complete.

By Edward P. Echlin

Laon town, in The Aisne, France, is the crowned mountain. The crown
is the soaring gothic cathedral on the hilltop, with towers seeking the sky. Like
all ancient European settlements, Laon has enjoyed important residents during the
Christian centuries, including John Scotus Erigena, Anselm of Laon and Abelard. It
is the birthplace of Jacques Marquette, whose collateral descendants, named Barbière,
still live there. When a millennium exhibition in Laon library commemorated
Marquette, and his exploration of the Mississippi, the elder Barbière, as a patron,
represented the Marquette family. As a blackrobe (Jesuit)
missionary in New France, Marquette, was one of the discoverers of the waterway later
celebrated as old man river. He was virtually the first Caucasian to see
wild buffalo, born free, roaming the plains. Marquette could not have known that the
buffalo, the plains, and the Illinois to whom he ministered, would suffer almost
terminally from settlers with muskets, technology, and a manifest destiny to
conquer, and destroy, the continent.

Marquette took notice of the buffalo. Anyone familiar with Laon cathedral would
have. For at the very top of the towers are a host of stone oxen, splendid against
the sky. Their towering presence is their epitaph, a tribute by the medieval masons
who built the cathedral. The hill challenged the masons to get their massive stones
to the top where the cathedral would rise. The oxen bore the stones in countless loads.
They, with the craftsmen, were called hilltoppers. Their depiction against the
Aisne sky, forever integrating members of the cathedral community, was the medieval
craftsmens way of expressing gratitude, and even admiration.

Two centuries after Père Jacques Marquette brought the gospel to the Illinois,
settlers overstocked the plains. The winter of 1886/7 was as extreme with snow and
ice, as was last winter in the UK with rain and floods. The stockmen got through the
long freeze. Their stock did not. The cattle stumbled through high drifts,
desperately seeking grass and water. Some collapsed on their sides and died of cold
and exhaustion. Others froze to the ground and died standing - like statues. In spring the
plains were again covered with white, this time of bones. A few entrepreneurs ground
the bones into bonemeal for gardeners back east.

Learning from Laon

The behaviour of Americans today at climate conferences, and of all who indulge in
climate-bashing air tourism, demonstrate that we have a lot to learn from people who
integrated oxen into their cathedral which crowns the hill. A cathedral, like a
parish church, is a prayer in stone - and the worshippers consist of more than people. The
Laon oxen, like the sheep and ox and ass in our own Nativity windows, the Good
Samaritans donkey, and the wild biodiversity in the olive garden where Jesus liked
to pray, prompt us to wonder, think, and pray about our animal companions as fellow
worshippers. How can we include animals in our personal prayers and common worship?
I pose this question because, just as it helps to love a person by praying for
them, so it helps to love another when we pray with them. As a royal priestly
people, baptised into Christ our King and Priest, we long to be in harmony with the whole
animal community from which we come, and of which, we, both laity and ordained, are a
part. The integration of animals into our worshipping community makes our community,
our prayer, and our worship, more whole and complete.

The how of animal prayer is a mystery. To integrate the animal community into our
prayer is a great act. And as Newman said, great acts take time. We may begin
with a few markers. There is agreement that animals glorify God, disagreement about
whether and how they consciously worship. We also wonder whether, and to what
extent, people lead animals and articulate their prayer when we worship. There are
pictures in the Bible of animals worshipping almost independently of ourselves, as, for
example, Psalm 148, the Apocalypse, and perhaps in Pauls Philippian hymn.
Other biblical texts emphasise human sovereignty, as for example, Psalm 8, and
Genesis 1. The Bible and the whole living Tradition leave the details of animal
prayer open. We need to balance some very high views of the human role, with more
inclusive ones. We need, for example, to complement the very human-centred social
justice of the Bishops of England and Wales, with the earth-inclusive celebration of
the whole creation of Pope John Paul II. Contemplation of the stonemasons and the
Laon oxen moves one to recall the Popes recent words to visitors. Faced
with the glory of the Trinity in the creation, mankind must contemplate, sing, rediscover
awe.

Leading the earth community in prayer

I suggest that people make a special, even sovereign, contribution to the praise,
reverence and service of our Creator, by the whole earth community. We do lead our
fellow sensate beings in prayer, but not as masters above them. We pray, with
animals, within the created community which people serve. Laity pray and lead the earth
community in prayer every bit as much as ordained priests. As Godfrey Dieckmann,
OSB, a peritus at Vatican II, said, The greatest achievement of Vatican II was the
restoration of the baptismal dignity of the laity, an achievement even greater than
episcopal collegiality. All of us, priests and laity, are sharers in
Christs royal priesthood. Our share in Christs priesthood does not remove us
from the circle of creation. We and the animals are brethren; we are not foreigners
above them. We can reflect fruitfully on Gods permission to the Jews to
appoint a king. You may indeed set as king over you him whom the Lord your God
will choose. One from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may
not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother (Deut. 17:15).

I conclude with two suggestions. First, let us open up, as Edmund
Fortmann, SJ, used to say in his lectures on grace, the holism in our offertory prayers.
Bread which earth has given, and wine fruit of the vine include
the active contributions of animals, as any organic gardener knows. The offertory
prayers should make us more conscious of the wider community with which we pray.
Animals contribute to our Eucharists. Secondly, let us, therefore, often have
animals around us when we pray, like the medieval craftsmen of Laon who beheld
hilltopper-oxen every time they entered their cathedral. Isaiah says of Gods love,
He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he
will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young (Is. 40:11).
May we not then pray, at certain times, holding or touching animals especially dear
to us?

* Edward P. Echlin is author of Earth Spirituality, Jesus at the Centre, Arthur James,
1999; and Honorary Research Fellow, University College of Trinity & All Saints, Leeds.
He is a life member of CSCAW.